[LotS] Solos an entire transport's crew, composed of dozens

Using the Force, Vader stopped his rotation and reeled himself in toward the large, jagged, smoking hole his interceptor had torn in the transport's hull. Loose hoses and electrical lines dangled from the edges of the opening, leaking gases and shooting sparks into space. A portion of his ship's wing had survived the impact and was lodged in the bulkhead. The rest had been vaporized on impact.

Vader pulled himself through the destruction until he stood in the remains of a depressurized corridor. Chunks of metal and electronics littered the torn deck, the whole of it smoking from the heat of impact. The V-wings buzzed past the transport, visible through the hole in the bulkhead.

"Sir?" said the squadron commander.

"All is under control, Commander," Vader said.

Several members of the fighter squadron whispered awed oaths into their comms.

"Maintain comm discipline," the squadron leader barked, though Vader could hear the disbelief in his tone, too. "My lord...there are dozens of hijackers aboard that transport."

"Not for much longer, Commander," Vader said. "You are on escort duty now. I will notify you if anything else is required."

A pause, then, "Of course, sir."

The transport's automatic safeties had sealed off the corridor with a blast door, but he knew the codes to override them. He strode through the ruin and entered the code. The huge door slid open, and pressurized air from the hall beyond poured out with a hiss. He stepped through and resealed the door behind him. A few more taps on a wall comp and he'd repressurized the hall. The shrill sound of the transport's hull-breach alarm wailed from wall speakers.

A hatch on the far side of the hall slid open to reveal a purple-skinned Twi'lek man in makeshift armor. Seeing Vader, the Twi'lek's head-tails twitched, his eyes widened in surprise, and he grabbed for the blaster at his belt. By the time the Twi'lek had the blaster drawn and the trigger pulled, Vader had his lightsaber in hand and ignited. He deflected the blaster shot into the wall, raised his off hand, and with it reached out with the Force. He made a pincer motion with his two fingers, using the Force to squeeze closed the Twi'lek's trachea.

The Twi'lek pawed frantically at his throat as Vader's power lifted him off the deck, but to his credit he held on to his weapon, and gagging, dying, he managed to aim and fire his blaster at Vader again and again. Vader simply held his grip on the alien's throat while casually deflecting the blasts into the bulkhead with his lightsaber. Then, not wanting to waste time, he moved his raised hand left and then right, using the Force to smash the Twi'lek into the bulkhead. The impacts shattered bone, and Vader let the body fall to the deck. A voice carried over a comlink on the Twi'lek's belt.

"Tymo! Tymo! What is going on there? Do you copy? Can you hear me?"

Vader deactivated his lightsaber, picked up the comlink, opened the channel, and let the sound of his respirator carry over the connection.

"Who is that?"

Vader answered only with his breathing.

"Tymo, is that you? Are you all right?"

"I'm coming for you now," Vader said.

He crushed the communicator in his fist, reignited his lightsaber, stepped over the dead Twi'lek, and strode into the corridor beyond.



CHAPTER TWO



Cham and Isval shared a look of alarm. They'd heard the communication through the open channel. They knew the sound of the respirator.

"Was that...?" Isval asked.

"Vader," Cham said. "Had to be. Pok?"

"I agree," Pok said. "That had to be Vader."

They knew Vader by reputation.

Silence weighed heavy on the bridge.

"What do we know?" Cham asked Isval in a whisper.

She shook her head, her lekku squirming in agitation. "Not much. Second- and thirdhand stories. I've heard that the regular officers hate him, but the Stormtrooper Corps almost worships him."

"How did he get aboard Pok's ship?"

Isval shrugged. She wasn't pacing. A bad sign. "They say he can do things no being should be able to do. Everyone is terrified of him. This is bad, Cham."

"I know." Cham's eyes followed hers to the viewscreen. They couldn't see the hijacked freighter, of course, but Cham could imagine it in his mind's eye. And now he imagined Vader aboard it.

"Situation, Pok."

For a moment, Pok didn't answer. Perhaps his attention was on something else, then, "Engines are dead, Cham. Weapons are destroyed. We're...boarded somehow. You heard."

"How'd he board?" Cham asked. "Is he alone?"

"I don't know," Pok said, then to someone on the bridge, he added, "I need that information now," then, "Cham, there are twenty-six of us here. We can fight. Make them pay, at least."

"Pok...," Cham began, but Pok spared him the need to say it.

"Don't worry. We won't be taken. My crew knew the risks when they volunteered for this. Unfortunately I can't self-destruct with the engines offline, but I've got a team of my best on the way to the cargo hold. We can use the weapons there as a fail-safe...What? Hold, Cham." Some background chatter that Cham could not make out, then Pok's voice: "Well, raise them. Raise them right now."

A pause, then someone in the background said, "They're not responding, Pok."

Cham muted the comm and said to his engineer, "Keep us hidden and tell me instantly if any of those V-wings so much as heads in our direction."

Cham knew V-wings had little in the way of long-distance sensors, but he had moved the freighter to the edge of the rings. Even the V-wings would pick it up if they got close enough.

"Yes, sir," the engineer said. "They look like they're holding formation around the weapons transport."

"We can't just let him kill himself," Isval said to Cham, her voice tense. "Let's get out there and help them. We can fight our way out."

"They're dead in space," Cham said, and instantly regretted his choice of words.

"Cham-"

Cham ignored her and unmuted the connection. "Pok?"

Pok cleared his throat. His bridge was quiet. "I've lost the team I sent to the hold, Cham. I don't know what...they're not answering their comms. Vader must have intercepted them."

Cham clenched a fist but kept his calm. "Understood."

Isval spoke through clenched teeth, slow for emphasis. "We should help them."

Cham muted the connection and whirled on her, the thread of his patience finally snapping.

"Help them how, Isval? They're without engines and surrounded! Even if we could destroy every V-wing, and you know we can't, it would take time to get them from their ship to ours. There's a Star Destroyer on the way, and some...man is aboard who managed single-handedly to wipe out a group of Pok's best people!"

She held her ground in the face of his outburst. The rest of the crew buried their faces in their stations.

"Vader's not a man," she said tightly. "Not from what I've heard."

"Yes, he is," Cham said, loud enough for the entire bridge crew to hear him. "He has to be. But there's nothing we can do to help that won't end with all of us dead, too. Pok knows it; they all know it. And we all know it." He sagged and looked back at the viewscreen. "We don't like it, but we all know it."

Pok's voice came over the comm. "Cham is right, everyone. We knew the risks. We took them willingly."

Cham cursed. He thought he'd muted the connection. "Pok, I'm sorry." Emotion choked his voice. "I thought..."

"I know," Pok said, and chuckled-actually chuckled. "Is that Isval over there?"

"It is, Pok," she said.

"Still blowing in like a sandstorm, I see," Pok said. "That's good. I'm glad we got to say good-bye. You keep Cham on course, all right? He's too damn principled for his own good."

"It doesn't have to be good-bye," Isval said, and stared at Cham.

"It does and it is. We'll see if we can't kill this Vader first, though. I've got an ambush set up..."

Someone on Pok's bridge crew said, "Blasterfire in the main corridor off the bridge, sir."

For a moment no one spoke on either bridge. Long moments passed. Then there was some talk on Pok's bridge in the background. Cham could not make it out.

"Situation?" Pok asked someone in his bridge crew.

"No one is answering the comm," came the reply.

"How can-There were eight men waiting for him! What is going on out there?"

"Bridge lift is coming up!" another member of Pok's crew said.

Pok spoke into the comm, his breathing audible over the connection, as if he was leaning in close. "Cham, we'll kill Vader and blow the ship. No one will get taken alive."

"Pok...," Cham began.

"It's been an honor," Pok said. "Keep up the fight. All of you."

Someone on Poks bridge shouted, "For a free Ryloth!" and the rest of the bridge crew echoed the cry.

Isval was gripping Cham's arm so hard his hand was growing numb. He stared at the open comm as if it held some secret meaning, some hidden thing he could discern that would save Pok and everyone else. But there was nothing.

The rest of his crew sat in silence at their stations, heads down, listening.

"It's opening!" said someone on Pok's bridge.

A burst of blasterfire carried across the connection, but only for a moment before falling silent.

"There's no one," said a voice. "The lift's empty."

"Check it," Pok ordered. "He's still aboard somewhere-"

A sizzle and hum sounded, shouts, a thump, repeated blasterfire, a prolonged thrum, rising and falling, a series of shouts and screams.

"Pok!" Isval cried. "Pok!"

Cham cursed.

"What's happening over there?" Isval asked. "What's that sound?"

The rising thrum dredged memories from the back of Cham's mind.

"It's a lightsaber," he said. The sound of the blade had been seared into his head during the Clone Wars, when Jedi had wielded them: Jedi doing things, like Vader, that no ordinary being could do. But there were no more Jedi and there was no more Republic. There was only Vader, and the Empire.

Another thump, then another. More alarmed shouts. Only two or three blasters were firing, and in the relative quiet another sound came over the comm: breathing, loud, as though amplified through a speaker or respirator. Vader's breathing.

"What is that? Is that Vader?" Isval asked, her own breath coming rapidly. Cham hurriedly muted the connection on his end.

More shouts, the crash of something heavy, and still the hum of the lightsaber, rising and falling.

"For Ryloth!" Pok shouted, and the sound of rapid blasterfire filled the comm.

The hum of the lightsaber rose and fell, and Cham imagined Vader deflecting the blaster shots with the blade. He'd seen it before. Abruptly the shots stopped. A strangled gasp came over the comm: Pok, choking.

"He's strangling him!" Isval said.

The choking went on for seconds that felt like hours, Vader's amplified breathing the counterpoint to Pok's dying gasps. Cham knew he should cut the connection, but he couldn't. Cutting it would feel like abandoning Pok a second time.

"Tell me what I want to know," said a deep voice, Vader's voice. "And your death will be easier."

They heard a pained gasp and a deep inhalation, followed by Pok cursing Vader in Twi'leki.

"Very well," Vader said.

Pok gagged again, gasped, and went silent. Then a thump sounded, something heavy but soft falling to the deck.

Isval screamed a curse. Cham's heart was a hammer on his ribs, but he said nothing. There was nothing to be said. The only sound was Vader's breathing carrying over the comm.

"Cut if off, Cham!" Isval said.

Cham stared at the comm, open but muted on Cham's end. Vader's breathing grew louder, as if he had picked up the comm to study it or hold it close to his face. The breathing. The breathing.

"Cut it, Cham!" Isval said.

Cham realized he was holding his breath. He seemed unable to breathe.

There was only Vader's respiration, regular as a pendulum. Loud. Ominous.

Cham finally got ahold of himself and exhaled, thinking of Pok, the awful gasps that had been the last sounds his friend had made.

"Your allies are dead," Vader said, and the words made Cham wince.

Isval slammed her hand on the comm, cutting it short.

Silence.